The Language Theory of Mind

Once while watching one of his favorite cartoons, Daniel said to me, “He’s afraid he’s going to get in trouble, but he knows it wasn’t him who did it.”

I’m not sure one could possibly have a better statement of theory of mind: “he knows it wasn’t him.”

For those who think people with autism do not have Theory of Mind, I present that as Exhibit A. After all, it requires ToM to understand that a person/character both knows that someone else thinks he did something, and that he knows he didn’t do what the other thinks he did.

The cartoon in question is slapstick with no language use at all. And yet, Daniel managed to figure out who knew what about whom, including the necessary recursiveness of knowing what he himself had or had not done.